My Art of Astronomy: What Did the Astronauts Who Landed on the Moon See? (Part 15)

The surface of the Moon looks cheerless. It is very dark and covered with large and small depressions. The Moon's mountains are high, but with gently sloping sides. There are no mountain peaks or steep cliffs. There is no water and no air on the Moon, so there is no life. The American astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin saw this in 1969 when they landed on the lunar surface. They were the first men on the Moon. Before that, in 1966, a Soviet automatic research station had landed on the Moon.

In 1970 a rocket took the Soviet self-moving research station Lunokhod 1 to the Moon. For several months it traveled on the Moon, sending scientific observations to Earth by radio.

^{Lunokhod 1, Department of Lunar and Planetary Research, SAI}

By television it sent pictures of the area surrounding it. The tracks of the Lunokhods wheels could be seen soil.

^{The track left on the Moon by Lunokhod 2 in 1973, Nature}